Chapter 710
His eyes were fixed on the holographic screen floating before him. It showed a satellite feed of the Citadel plaza, timestamped forty minutes ago — Dallas Koch’s private army surrounding the building, the black Ducati tearing through police barricades, Eliza’s body rolling across the wet pavement, her red dress a vivid smear of color against the gray marble.
He watched it again. And again.
Each time the image looped back to Eliza pushing herself up onto her knees, her eyes finding Dallas’s face, Gideon’s pupils dilated with manic intensity.
“Pause,” he commanded.
The image froze. Eliza’s mouth was open mid-scream. Stop. It’s a trap. I’m here.
Gideon’s hand shot out. He gripped the edge of the surgical table, his knuckles whitening. The fresh sutures in his shoulder pulled, strained, then popped — one, two, three — reopening the wound. Fresh blood welled up, thick and dark, soaking through the gauze the robot had just applied.
He didn’t notice. Or he noticed, and the sensation fed him.
“She came for him,” Gideon whispered. His tongue darted out, wetting his lower lip. “She rode through a storm. She bled for him.”
The medical robot moved to re-approach with fresh gauze. Gideon snarled — a feral, inhuman sound — and the machine retreated, its sensors reading the danger in his biometrics.
On the screen, the loop restarted. Dallas falling to his knees. Gathering Eliza to his chest. The way his hands shook as he buried them in her hair.
Gideon’s breathing accelerated. His chest heaved, muscles rippling beneath the blood-smeared skin.
“She should have come for me,” he said to the empty room. “She will come for me.”
The heavy blast door at the entrance hissed open.
Princess Cecelia swept in, her expensive fur coat trailing behind her, her face a mask of aristocratic fury that couldn’t quite conceal the tremor in her lower lip.
“Have you lost your mind?” She stopped ten feet from the surgical table, her gaze moving from the blood to the open wound to the madness in Gideon’s eyes. “The entire European military apparatus is on high alert because of your little stunt. My brother is demanding explanations. The Queen —”
“The Queen,” Gideon interrupted, his voice soft, almost gentle, “is using me, Cecelia. Just as you’re using me. Just as I’m using you.”
He finally turned to look at her. His eyes were blue — striking, crystalline blue — but the pupils were wrong. Too large. Too hungry.
Cecelia took an involuntary step back. Her heel caught on the polished floor and she stumbled.
Gideon laughed. It was a low, vibrating sound that seemed to rise from deep in his chest, resonating through the sterile space like a physical force.
“You actually thought this was about the Royal family’s interests?” He stood, ignoring the blood dripping from his shoulder, the loose sutures dangling like grotesque jewelry. “You thought I wanted your palaces? Your treaties? Your dusty bloodlines?”
He walked toward her. Slow. Deliberate. Each barefoot step leaving a red print on the white floor.
Cecelia retreated until her back met the cold metal of a storage cabinet. “Stop. I am a princess of the blood. You cannot —”
Gideon’s hand shot out. He grabbed her wrist, his fingers wrapping all the way around it, the pressure immediate and crushing.
.
.